


Future in Solace

by HomuraBakura



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: F/M, Flowershipping, Post-Series, Sleepovers, idk it's fluffy, kotori headcanon: kotori used to take kendo, the zexal characters just hang out all the time and it's super cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 20:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7330417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>30 min oneshot</p><p>Kotori wakes up after a sleepover party with all her friends, and starts thinking about things that maybe she should have done better.  Alit's here to share his excitement and encouragement with her.</p><p>[an idea I'll probably play with more later in longer fics]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future in Solace

“Hey...are you awake?”

There wasn't a response.

 _Guess not,_ she thought.

Kotori pushed herself up onto her hands, the old, worn blue sheet tangling over her knees. A yawn stretched her lips and she cracked her shoulders once. She couldn't remember when she had fallen asleep, herself. She must have passed out somewhere in the middle of Mario Kart. It was pretty early, she saw looking at her watch. Well after five in the morning...

She ran her tongue over dry lips as she glanced down at the lump on the floor beside the couch.

Alit was about as restless as a sleeper as she had expected, his limbs flung out in all directions, his thin sheet tucked under one leg and stretched over the other. His mouth hung wide open in his sleep, a bit of drool leaking out the corner, and Kotori hide a smile behind her hand.

“Dork,” she mumbled.

She just sat there for a moment, twisting the hem of the sheet between her hands. Alit must have thrown it over her, because she didn't remember getting one before she passed out. The room was still a mess, scattered sheets of paper and pencils dripping over the sides of the table like a waterfall, half empty bowls of chips left any place there was a surface with crumbs scattered around them, crumpled candy wrappers left under the table. The controllers from their game were still strewn about the floor in front of the television. At least they didn't have cords, or Kotori probably would have gotten irritated at the inevitable tangle. Why couldn't anyone put anything away neatly? She was honestly surprised Durbe or Mizael hadn't gotten irritated enough to pick things up. The pair of them were even more of neat freaks than she was.

But it looked like no one had touched the mess, and when she glanced over the back of the couch towards the other side of the basement room, she could see that quite a few others had passed out in the basement as well after the party. Vector was somehow asleep across the back of the other couch like a cat, the rest of the couch sinking under Gilag's weight. Rio had fallen asleep in an armchair, and a blanket had been very carefully arranged over her, a pillow tucked under her hair. Probably Ryoga or Durbe had done that...Yuma himself was sprawled out on one of the futons, Shark passed out beside him. Kaito definitely left already with Haruto in tow, and Kotori guessed Mizael must have left with him. Durbe was probably upstairs. She was guessing no one had actually expected people to lose track of the time so easily.

She slipped off the couch and carefully stepped over Alit. Well, she didn't feel like she could go back to sleep now...

She knelt down to pick up the discarded Wii remotes, unplugging the nunchuks and twisting their cords neatly around the remote. She stored them away into the shelf under the television, checking that everything had been turned off. With that at least tucked away, she leaned back on her hands and let out a soft breath.

It was quiet down here, she thought as she closed her eyes. She liked it. With all these people, it was sometimes hard to find a quiet place to breathe. She had always enjoyed those breaths, quiet spots in the middle of everything. Her mother had always been impressed with her meditation during early kendo lessons while the other kids fidgeted and squirmed. Even as a child, she had found solace in silence. Her hands twitched softly—she missed kendo, she thought. Why had she ever quit?

A soft groan caught her attention, and her eyes fluttered open. Before she had a chance to look over her shoulders, a pair of arms dropped over her from behind, getting her in a bear hug. She squeaked, hands clamping to the arms across her before she fell backwards into whoever had grabbed her.

“Mmmmm....mornin',” Alit mumbled, clearly only half awake. He always got so cuddly when he was sleepy—Kotori remembered laughing when he had mistaken Vector for Yuma in his sleep and hugged him so tightly that Vector had been trapped for a full five minutes. The look of mortification on Vector's face was still absolutely priceless. “Did the angels come 'n wake me up again?”

Kotori snorted.

“You're a dork,” she said, bumping her head back into his.

“Oww...'Tori's so mean...”

There was half a laugh in his voice though, and she giggled softly herself.

For a moment, they just sat there.

“Somethin' wrong?” Alit mumbled.

Kotori leaned back against him, still gripping his arms.

“No, not really,” Kotori said. “I just woke up. And I started thinking.”

“Thinkin's always a bad idea,” Alit said, and Kotori laughed. “S'why I never do it.”

Kotori reached behind her to bop his nose.

“We can't all punch our problems away,” she teased.

“Why not?”

The quiet fell between them again, and Kotori breathed it in, holding the silence in her head.

“I guess I just started thinking about stuff that I miss,” she said. “I used to take kendo with my mom. We did meditation and stuff—the quiet reminded me.”

“What? Really?” Alit said. “I didn't know that.”

Kotori shrugged, nestling her head down against his arms.

“I...I quit before I started middle school. I don't know why. I guess I got scared or something.”

Alit hummed under his breath, resting his head on top of hers.

“Kendo, huh? I like boxing better, but it's pretty cool.”

“Mom used to take me up to the mountains every year with some of her other students for training camps,” she said, mind casting back. “But I guess I just...I don't know. We had a fight or something...I refused to go the spring before middle school started.”

Kotori tightened her grip around Alit's arms. She felt tears poking her eyes all of a sudden.

“I just...can't even remember why I stopped,” she mumbled. “But...maybe if I had kept at it...I wouldn't have been so useless....”

Alit let out a tiny huff. And then, before Kotori knew what he was doing, he blew a raspberry into the back of her neck.

Kotori squeaked and tumbled forward out of his hug, collapsing onto her hands. She whipped around to face him, face flushing as she pressed her hand to the back of her neck.

“W-What was that for??”

Soft groans echoed from around the room and she squeaked again, clamping her lips shut. Had she woken anyone up? She thought she saw Rio stirring in the armchair, and Vector was blinking as he raised his head off the back of the couch.

Alit crossed his legs. Then he reached out to poke her in the nose, a smile pulling at his lips.

“Rule number one,” he said. “If you're gonna work at something, you don't think about what could have been if you had it sooner.”

Kotori blinked, just staring at his finger on her nose.

“What...do you mean by that?” she said.

Alit sat back, and this time, his grin showed his teeth, a flash of excitement against the shadows.

“When I started fightin' the first time in the arena, I started to think that if I had just worked at it a little sooner, I wouldn't have gotten taken away from home in the first place,” he said. “Coulda fought 'em off or something.”

He tilted his head and his bangs shifted. Kotori felt her heart pang once at what Alit was saying, feeling suddenly stupid—here she was complaining, but Alit had had it so much harder than she had! And now he was trying to comfort her.

But actually...the more she thought about it, that didn't seem to be the point. Was he actually trying to comfort her, or was he trying to say something else?

“But when I thought like that, I stopped fightin' as hard. Because it's easy, ya know? It's easy to think that you _could_ do better.”

His grin was excited now, like a dog being asked if he wanted to go on a walk. A warmth spread over Kotori's own chest, as though his excitement were contagious.

“So you just gotta think about what you can do in the future instead. Then you're all good! You just keep getting better.”

A stream of light from the sunrise peeked through one of the thin windows at the top of the room. It fell across Kotori's hand, and she reached up to absently rub at her nose where he had poked her.

“But kendo!” Alit said, eyes sparkling in the new light, looking excited. “That's super cool! You should learn again—we can do a mountain trip like you used to and then we can spar or something!! I used to fight guys with swords sometimes, it was _exciting_!”

Kotori blinked. And then a laugh bubbled up in her throat, and she had to press a hand to her mouth. Alit's excitement vanished to be replaced with surprise and worry.

“W-What? What did I say??”

Kotori just smothered giggles into her hand, feeling laugh tears pooling at her eyes. Alit's hands flapped up and down with uncertainty, a blush creeping over his cheeks.

“What??” he said again.

Kotori shook her head, finally dropping her hand from her mouth. She pressed it instead to the back of Alit's.

“That sounds like fun,” she said. “Let's do it.”

He stared for just a moment. And then a smile broke over his face, and it was even more dazzling than the sunlight pouring through the window.

 


End file.
